ALIENS
by Snap
Summary: ALIENS rewritten with an extra female character, Charlotte. Her inclusion in the story will have an effect on how things will turn out, who lives, and who dies…
1. Hadley Looses Its Hope

**TITLE**: ALIENS  
**SUMMARY**: ALIENS rewritten with an extra female character, Charlotte. Her inclusion in the story will have an effect on how things will turn out, who lives, and who dies…  
**PAIRING**: Hicks/OFC  
**LENGTH**: 20-30 chapters.  
**RATING**: PG-13 for language and violence and a tid-bit of romance:)  
**GENRE**: Action/adventure/romance/horror  
**DISCLAIMER**: I own my character, but I don't own anything that even remotely has to do with the ALIEN franchise. That privilege lies with 20th Century Fox. No copyright infringement is intended.  
**AUTHOR'S NOTE**: As a side note, all of the information for this story, such as dates, times, events, names (except my OCs), and places, I got from some very handy websites. I got my grubby hands on an online script and I also happened upon a very useful ALIENS 'timeline.' Good Stuff. Anywho, like I said in the summary, some of the events of the story will change because Charlotte is now involved. So not everything is perfect to the script. It wouldn't be much of a story then, now would it? By the way, information about my character, Charlotte, is made up. As is her past and anything that she tells Ripley and the Marines. Kay… That is all.

* * *

Chapter 1: Hadley Looses Its Hope

JULY 3, 2179

Charlotte Hodges couldn't remember much of the dream she had. All she knew was that something dark and looming and dreadful was searching for her. She knew it was in the dark places ready to reach its clawed hand out and drag her screaming into the darkness.

Thank the heavens it was only a dream.

Charlotte's eyes fluttered open and she stared at the ceiling groggily. It was still dark in her small apartment. The automatic lights hadn't come on yet.

She tried stretching her body out underneath the thin sheet on her bed but stopped when she realized something heavy and warm was lying on her right arm. She turned her head to see a small child snuggled up against her, her back pushed cozily against Charlotte's side. She was curled up and holding a small brown teddy bear. Her neck rested on Charlotte's arm.

The woman smiled softly as she turned onto her side and, with her left hand, began to stroke the little girl's light brown curls. She vaguely remembered her daughter coming to her a couple of hours earlier claiming there were monsters under her bed and that she wanted to sleep in bed with her mother. The little girl shifted under her mother's touch and Charlotte silently hoped the girl wasn't having the same dream that she herself just woke up from.

Charlotte turned over onto her back and sighed, rubbing her eyes with her thumb and index finger. "I wish she didn't have to grow up here. This colony is no place for a child." she whispered to herself. She closed her eyes and was about to drift back into sleep when she heard something. Her eyes flew open. It was distant but very distinct. Gunfire. She heard gunfire. Six or seven shots, maybe.

Charlotte was completely still as she waited to hear more shots. Nothing. She heard a scream, though, and it was much, much closer than the gunfire.

Charlotte shot out of bed with such speed that she nearly got tangled up in the sheets and hit the floor. She darted to her dresser and slipped out of the blue tank top she wore and into a black, long sleeve shirt. The shirt said 'Weyland-Yutani… Building Better Worlds" across the chest. She threw on grey, faded pants and a pair of old Reebok sneakers that had been with her since she was back on Earth.

Her back was turned to the small pair of eyes that watched her from the edge of the bed. "Mommy? What's going on?"

Charlotte paused and hopped around to face her daughter in her little pink nightgown. One foot was in mid-air and she was trying to tie her shoe. "Nothing, baby. We have to go find your grandpa and uncle. Okay?" She spoke as softly and warmly as she could as she continued to tie her shoe. She didn't want to raise any alarms in her daughter and make her cry.

Suddenly there was more gunfire. And much closer, too.

Accompanying this gunfire, though, was an older man barging through Charlotte's bedroom door. "Dad!" she yelped.

He was holding onto the side of the metal door and leaning into her room. He seemed exhausted and out of breath but his eyes were wild and wide. He was shining a flashlight on the two females. "We're leaving, _now_! Grab Michelle!" the older man barked.

Doctor Malcolm Hodges was a balding, but cheery, man in his late fifties. But suddenly he seemed a lot older and meaner to Charlotte. She watched him scamper wildly around her room grabbing some of her belongings: her purse, a photograph, her ID card.

"What the hell is going on, Dad! Are those gunshots that I heard? And screaming! Where's Carl?" Charlotte demanded. If she was going to be frightened out of her mind she sure-as-hell wanted to know why.

The doctor stopped what he was doing, the flashlight in one hand and Charlotte's belongings in another. He watched her scoop up her daughter and the teddy bear that belonged to her. "Carl is… I don't know where Carl is. Probably playing some kind of goddamn hero out there! But you can't play hero with these things! That's why we have to leave, Charlotte…" This usually calm and collected man sounded nearly hysterical.

Charlotte felt fear creeping up her spine and she looked at Michelle, who had her head buried into Charlotte's shoulder.

"We're not going anywhere until we know why, Dad. And I mean it. And what 'things' are you talking about?" Charlotte said sternly. She tried desperately not to sound afraid.

Doctor Hodges stuffed the flashlight he had into the pocket of his long, white jacket. He left it on and facing upwards so it cast eerie shadows on his wrinkled face. His arm sprang out and clenched Charlotte's wrist. "You know what 'things' I'm talking about, Charlotte. The situation's gotten a lot worse. People are dying. That's why we have to get everyone we can to the barricaded area near Operations." His voice calmed down and now it was barely more than a whisper.

And in that moment, Charlotte knew what he spoke of. This was bad. For her safety and the safety of her six-year-old daughter, she had to get the hell out of there.

At the same time, Charlotte and her father bolted for the bedroom door and ran outside of Charlotte's small living space. The door slid shut behind them and Charlotte looked around. The long corridor was dimly lit and it seemed a lot more cold and menacing than it used to. Charlotte shivered as she placed Michelle on the hard, metal floor. The girl seemed to have the same response to the corridor her mother did.

Outside the main entrance to her home were five people. Three men and two women. All of them she knew. Nurses. Doctors. People she worked with. They all carried firearms of some kind. They looked frightened.

They all nodded to Charlotte and one of the men looked at Doctor Hodges. "Malcolm, we gotta go."

Her father nodded at the man, who Charlotte knew as her father's co-worker and fellow doctor, Ronald Shuman. The group started to move quickly down the corridor. They all then broke into a slow run as they turned a corner down another long hallway. Everyone's feet clinked eerily on the floor below them. It seemed to echo for a long distance.

Charlotte, Michelle, and Doctor Hodges brought up the end of the small group. Charlotte was pulling Michelle along and Doctor Hodges was pulling Charlotte along. "I'm so sorry, honey." The man looked over his shoulder at the frightened and suspicious woman who was holding his hand, his daughter. "I know this was so sudden. But things got complicated. Things got complicated all over the place. It's safer if we stick together and move quickly."

Charlotte looked over her shoulder at her daughter and the teddy bear she clutched. "It'll be okay, baby." Suddenly she and her daughter found it difficult to keep up with the group. They were starting to move too fast. "Dad," Charlotte called out, "slow down!"

Her father seemed to ignore her. "These things, these… _creatures_, have highly corrosive blood. Some kind of molecular acid." He said as they approached a rather large hole directly in the middle of the floor. "We shot one of those big fuckers and as it bled to death it fell right through the floor."

Charlotte looked past her father at the ground. The edges of the hole sizzled as the acid ate through it.

Then something frightening happened. When they passed the hole, Charlotte lost grip of her daughter. In fact, it's more like her daughter's hand was yanked from hers. A light, feminine scream filled the corridor.

In that moment time seemed to slow down for Charlotte.

She whipped her head around just in time to see her daughter being pulled into the darkness of the hole in the floor. The very hole that her father just spoke of. Then everything was silent.

All that was left was a small, brown teddy bear.

The group turned around just as Charlotte dove towards the hole. "Michelle?" she cried out. "Michelle!"

She picked up the teddy bear, grabbed the edge of the hole with her left hand, and looked into the darkness. But that ended quickly when a searing pain started in the palm of her left hand and shot up through her arm. She had touched the acidic blood around the edges. She screamed in agony and her body lurched back away from the hole.

"Michelle!" she screamed. "Michelle!"

By that time two people had grabbed her arms; her father and a young woman. They tried pulling her back as Charlotte tried to dive for the hole again, completely ignoring her wounded hand.

Even though he was right next to her, holding on to her actually, her father sounded so distant and muffled. "Charlotte, we have to _go_! We'll get Michelle. We'll get her. But right now we can't stay here!"

Tears were freely running down her cheeks as she tried getting to the hole again and again. She loved her child. She would fight to the death to get her back. But the group was dragging her down the corridor, away from the dark hole that was filled with everything from every nightmare she ever had.

"Michelle…"

* * *

JULY 4, 2179

The moment Corporal Dwayne Hicks laid eyes on Carter J. Burke, he didn't like him. Or he was at the very least suspicious of him. Carter was what Hicks and his fellow troopers liked to call an 'ass-kisser' or a 'paper-pusher.' Hicks saw Carter as the kind of man who would do anything to please his superiors, to stay out of the field or danger, or to save his own ass from a heap of trouble.

And Hicks realized that, by the looks of it, Apone was thinking the same thing about the man. The older, African man stood there, nearly choking himself on his cigar as he usually did, and watched Carter like he was the smallest, no-nothing peon in the world.

"So whatchu gotta say about this, Lieutenant Gorman?" Sergeant Apone took his cigar out of his mouth and turned his focus on the young man in the immaculately clean marine uniform.

The man looked startled at the sudden interest in himself. He cleared his throat. "I, uh, don't know what you mean, Sergeant Apone." Hicks looked down at the ground as he tried to stifle a smirk. He knew Apone could be quite intimidating even to his superiors. It was just his nature.

"I mean," Apone said as he stuffed his cigar back in his mouth and folded his arms, "whatdaya gotta say about this? Whatdaya gotta say about this… xenomorph?" He pronounced the word strangely, as if it was just some word he made up and decided to use at the moment.

Carter cut in and pulled the attention away from the now-nervous Lieutenant Gorman. "He knows as much as you do, Sergeant Apone. We're not hiding anything from you. All we know is that we lost contact with Hadley's Hope on Acheron yesterday and the Colonial Administration wants us to check it out. And we have to bring along a military team in case we encounter a xenomorph. I'm sure it's just a down transmitter, but we'd like to take precautions here."

Hicks and Apone nodded their head. Hicks wanted to know what the hell a 'xenomorph' was, but he kept his comments and suspicions to himself. He didn't talk much anyway.

Apone decided not to pursue this subject any further. He was getting nowhere with this stuffy paper-pusher in his nice shiny suit. The man just kept repeating himself whenever Apone had a question.

The silence that filled the room made Carter uncomfortable. He had to speak. "A woman will be coming with us when we go to the planet. Her name is Ellen Ripley. She'll be an advisor to the situation. She's had an encounter with a xenomorph before. We'll be speaking with her next."

"So, when do we leave?" Apone asked.

"The day after tomorrow." Gorman said. "We'll board the Sulaco and from there make our way to Acheron. It'll take a couple weeks. We'll make it there by the end of the month. A small drop-ship with take us to the planet's surface."

"Hmm. Okie dokie." Apone said, a bit annoyed. He wished he could've been given a little more of a notice before this was slapped in his face.

"Thanks a lot, guys." Carter said with a broad smile, looking at Apone then to Hicks. "We're just going to check this out and we'll be back home in no time."

Carter and Gorman took their leave and left Apone and Hicks alone. The two men stood there for a moment before Hicks plopped himself down on a small, rather uncomfortable couch that had no arms. Hicks squirmed a little bit and thought about how awkward and bland all the furniture was on Gateway Station.

He lit himself a cigarette and stared at Apone, who was still smoking his cigar, from across the room. The two soldiers regarded each other silently for a moment.

"So I suppose they'll just brief the others before we get there." Hicks said as he finally stood up to leave.

"Somethin' like that." Apone mumbled.

Hicks stopped when he reached the door. He ran one hand through his rough, brown hair. "Sergeant, I don't like this. I don't trust this."

Apone looked at Hicks as if he was just being a big baby about everything. "Don't worry about this, Hicks. I've got my unit of ultimate badasses!" He smiled. "We'll be just fine…" And with that, he booted Hicks out and closed the door.

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTE**: I don't know if that's how the conversation would've went with any of those four men if they spoke first before leaving Gateway, but that's my interpretation. And remember, your review is more than welcome! 


	2. Acheron

**AUTHOR'S NOTE**: Thanks so much for the reviews! If you have any advice, suggestions, or ideas for plot twists or ways to make the story better, I'm all ears! I also borrowed a couple of descriptions of things/places from the actual movie script. So you'll probably catch those throughout the story as well. Anywho, enough of my gabbing. On to Chapter 2!

* * *

Chapter 2: Acheron

JULY 27, 2179

The USS Sulaco took nearly three weeks to arrive at LV-426, which the colonists of Hadley's Hope had renamed Acheron. The troop transport didn't actually land on LV-426. It simply went into orbit around the small planetoid.

The large craft was ugly and battered, but still functional. The rough-and-tough marines didn't seem to care, though. It was like a second home to them.

At the moment, though, the Sulaco seemed lonely and abandoned. Most lights were either off or dimmed and there was no movement anywhere on board. The marines, Bishop, Ripley, and Burke were all in stark white cryotubes in the hypersleep chamber on a lower level of the craft.

Suddenly, some lights flickered and several computers came on. One by one, the lids of the long, white cryotubes opened. It took several minutes for everyone to open their eyes and even longer for them to actually sit up and realize where they were.

The entire hypersleep chamber was blindingly white and many of the troopers had to squint or rub their eyes first before they could focus on anything.

Ellen Ripley sat up in her cryotube and looked to the man on her right, Pvt. Drake. He looked grim and menacing, as he always did. Ripley noted the long scar that ran from the corner of his right eye towards his ear. He ran a hand through his bright blonde hair and looked around. "They ain't payin' us enough for this, man." He grumbled.

A woman, Cpl. Dietrich, the med-tech, was on the other side of Drake. "Not enough to have to wake up to your face, Drake." She said as she stood up.

"What?" he said looking over at her from his cryotube. "Is that a joke?"

"I wish it were." She sighed.

Drake looked over to a man past Ripley, Corporal Hicks. Hicks was sitting up in his cryotube with his legs hanging over the edge. He was rubbing the back of his head. "Hey Hicks, man… you look just like I feel."

Hicks didn't respond but just looked up at the man and continued to rub his head. 'Smartass,' he thought to himself. He and Ripley made eye contact for a moment but she quickly broke it off.

Sergeant Apone sat up in his cryotube and the first thing he did after he sat up was stuff a cigar in his mouth. He got up and walked down the line of tubes in his green boxers. "All right, sweethearts, what are you waitin' for? Breakfast in bed?" he said, holding his cigar in his hand. He watched the others get up. "Another glorious day in the corps! A day in the Marine Corps is like a day on the farm. Every meal's a banquet! Every paycheck a fortune! Every formation a parade! I _love_ the corps!"

He stopped at Pvt. Hudson's cryotube. He knew that Hudson was a wisecracking, no-work-all-play kind of guy. He had his panicky moments but Apone knew that Hudson was a damn good com-tech.

"Man, this floor's freezing." Hudson said as he stood up and hopped around a little bit on the cold floor.

Apone looked at him. "What do ya want me to do, fetch your slippers for ya?"

Hudson looked back at him as he grabbed his cold foot. "Gee, would you, sir? I'd like that."

"Just get moving, Hudson." Apone said, annoyed. He turned away from the man and called out to everyone else. "Fall in, people. C'mon. Let's go."

* * *

After they ate, all ten of the marines lounged around on crates and boxes in the armory. They were being briefed. Before them stood Sergeant Apone, Lieutenant Gorman, Ellen Ripley, and Carter Burke.

The marines were suspicious of Ripley and skeptical of her story. They didn't believe this 'xenomorph' fairytale. It was too far-fetched and silly to be true. Giant aliens with acid for blood? Right.

Dwayne Hicks, on the other hand, was a different story. He made no underhanded or condescending comments like the others did. He just sat on top of a crate, smoking a cigarette, watching Ripley very carefully.

This strong-willed woman seemed frightened and sad. '_Something_ must have scared her,' he thought to himself. 'For her to even be here, she must've seen something…'

And once again, he saw the dark-haired Carter Burke, that sniveling little paper-pusher. He was a representative for Weyland-Yutani, so he probably had some kind of 'secret mission,' or some bullshit like that, for the Company. He wore a plaid shirt with a beige vest and dark pants. Hicks noted that even he himself could dress better than Carter and Hicks had no sense of style whatsoever, except, of course, for his military uniform. People seemed to appreciate _that_.

Hicks snapped out of his daze when Gorman started to talk. He spoke with a learned authority. As if he had heard people speak like this a thousand times but never actually tried it himself until at that moment. "All right, I want this to go smooth and by the numbers. I want DCS and tactical database assimilation by 0830." Several of the marines groaned. "Ordnance loading, weapons strip and drop-ship prep details will have seven hours…" This time everyone groaned.

* * *

From what the marines could tell, Hadley's Hope was deserted. It was like a ghost town. Each corridor was lonely and dark with not a single soul around. None of the marines stated it directly, but it frightened and puzzled them.

A battle had raged there, that they knew. They came across a barricade near Operations and each little apartment in the Residential Wing looked like it had seen a world war. There were giant gaps and holes in the walls, ceiling, and floor from what Ripley believed to be acidic blood.

After Lieutenant Gorman labeled the area secure (which Ripley promptly objected to), he, Ripley, Bishop, and Burke entered the complex. The four of them went with one team of the marines. The other team, headed by Sergeant Apone, stayed near Operations.

Ripley was the first to notice the medlab with the stasis tubes.

Ripley's face became grim but curious as she walked towards the room. As she reached the doorway Hicks grabbed her arm and pulled her back. He stepped into the room first. "Lieutenant." Hicks said. No response. Hicks took another step or two into the room. "Gorman!" he said, a little more annoyed.

Gorman stepped into the room. The others followed. The room was dimly lit except for the seven transparent cylinders, which glowed faintly.

Inside the stasis tubes was what terrified Ripley, though. The jars appeared to contain giant, beige spiders. But Ripley knew better. Their long tails had drifted to the bottom and their ghastly thin legs were curled up tightly. They appeared to be dead.

Our beloved Carter Burke was the first to get close to the tubes. "Are these the same…?" He looked back at Ripley. She simply nodded, unable to speak.

Burke stared at one of the tubes intently. He got so close to it he was nearly pressing his nose into the glass. "Careful, Burke…" Ripley called out from behind him.

The creature inside lunged suddenly, slamming its skeletal body against the glass. Burke jumped back. Everyone stared in awe and disgust as a small, ivory-colored tubule sprung out from its underbelly and moved all over the glass.

"Looks like love at first sight to me." The thing continued to swim all over the glass. "Oh, he likes you, Burke." Hicks said as he leaned in and smirked at Burke. Burke tried to play off a small smile but he was a little too twitchy at the moment for that.

Bishop, the synthetic who looked to be in his forties or so, grabbed a small, brown clipboard off of a table nearby and looked at it. "Two are alive, the rest are dead." He flipped through a couple of pages that were attached to the clipboard. He spoke softly as he looked closely at one of the pages. "Surgically removed before embryo implantation. Subject: Marachuk, John J. Died during the procedure." He looked up at everyone. "They killed him getting it off."

Pvt. Drake and Pvt. Frost were in a room connected to the medlab. Frost was holding the motion tracker when it suddenly beeped loudly. "Yo, Hicks!" Frost, a young black man with a rather deep voice, called out. "I think we got somethin' here."

Hicks peered over Frost's shoulder and stared at the motion tracker for a moment, at the two bluish-white dots heading in their direction. "Behind us." He said as he glanced over his shoulder at the corridor they just passed through.

"Any of us?" Ripley said as she stood next to Hicks.

Gorman had a small headset on. He used it to contact Apone. "Apone… where are your people? Anybody in D-Block?"

"Negative." Came Apone's voice over the headset. "We're all in Operations."

That was Drake's cue. He slid past everyone to the front of the group with his giant smart-gun. He squatted a little bit as he positioned the gun in front of him. "Talk to me, Frosty." He said to Frost as he moved along. Frost was directly behind him.

"Keep movin', baby." Frost said as he held the tracker in front of him. It was beeping steadily.

The group continued to move through the rest of the medlab. They stopped when they reached the doorway. Hicks, Frost, and Drake were heading the group.

"It's moving." Hicks said as he glanced at the tracker.

"Which way?" Drake spoke softly as he continued to stared out of the doorway, waiting for something to just pop out and scare the living daylights out of him

"It's comin' straight for us. Straight up." Frost watched the tracker intently.

The group stepped out into the corridor but nothing was there. As they moved farther down the hallway, the beeping of the tracker became more loud and frequent. The little bluish-white dots were coming closer. Twelve meters… eleven meters… ten meters…

Hicks stared into the dim hallway. He could see that the end of the hallway turned to the left and into another corridor. 'Something's not right,' he said to himself. 'Whoever it is is coming right towards us. Are they armed?' He glanced at Drake and Frost and saw the huge guns they possessed. Then he glanced at the gun in his own hands. 'Well, they definitely can't outgun us…'

At that moment, Hicks saw something. Dark forms. Two shadows, to be exact, slowly rising up the wall of the corridor. Whoever it was was coming down the second hallway.

Drake raised his gun, ready to fire.

"Don't shoot!" Hicks barked. The two soldiers next to him stopped in mid-step and looked at him strangely. "Look." Hicks said as he pointed down the hallway.

From around the bend came two people; a small girl and a woman, maybe twenty-five or so. The two stopped at the end of the hallway and stared at the soldiers and the four people behind them. The girl was clinging to the woman's leg fiercely and hiding half her head behind the woman's lower back. This lady, whoever she was, had her arm wrapped protectively around the girl's upper body. They both looked ragged and terrified.

"P-please." The woman began softly as tears streamed down her dirty cheeks. "Please, help us."


	3. The Interrogation

**AUTHOR'S NOTE**: Hey, once again thanks for the reviews. I appreciate it. I'll probably be going back to redo some things with the end of chapter 1, so you may want to look out for that. Also, this chapter is where I start to deviate (a little more) from the script, so enjoy. Anywho, on to the good stuff…

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Chapter 3: The Interrogation

The two tattered and torn looking females were soon helped by the marines into the Manager's Office of Operations. They didn't even have much of a chance to breathe, though, before they were being nearly frisked by Dietrich. She whipped out two bio-monitoring cuffs and began her routine readings on the two.

"So, what are your names?" Dietrich said softly as she looked at the readouts on the small machines. She had short, choppy brown hair and brown eyes to match.

"M-my name is Charlotte Hodges. Her name is Rebecca Jorden." Charlotte said as she wrapped her right arm comfortingly around the small, dazed girl. It felt like it had been so long since she actually communicated with another human being and she wasn't sure she still knew how.

"Well," the med-tech began with a smile, "my name is Cynthia Dietrich. We're here to help." Dietrich looked at the woman carefully. She looked so frightened and battered. Her long brown hair was pulled back into a messy, frazzled ponytail and her long bangs covered most of her dark blue eyes. Dirt and grime covered her small face and her clothes looked like they had seen better days. Her gray pants were faded and ripped and Dietrich noted ominously that there were blood stains in several places. Not to mention the left sleeve of her black shirt was torn completely off. By what, Dietrich didn't know. That's when she noticed Charlotte's left hand and the white gauze wrapped around it. The woman had been trying to hide it.

Dietrich reached out for Charlotte's hand but Charlotte retracted it quickly and pulled it closely to her chest. "It's fine. Don't touch it. It's been dressed properly and I change the gauze frequently." She said before Dietrich could make a comment. Dietrich cocked her head to the side quizzically, as if this woman shouldn't know anything about dressing wounds. Charlotte smiled a little. "I'm a nurse."

Dietrich nodded and Charlotte thought for a moment that maybe the med-tech would just leave her alone. "I'd still like to see that wound." Charlotte frowned but never got the opportunity to respond because a young man had suddenly entered the small office.

"What're their names?" he said to Dietrich as he watched her take the cuffs off Charlotte and Rebecca and pack up her equipment.

Charlotte sighed. "Ya know, I'm right here. You can ask me." she said. The man, who happened to be Lieutenant Gorman, looked at her but said nothing. "I'm Charlotte. The girl is Rebecca."

"Anything wrong with them?" Gorman turned to Dietrich just before she left the room.

She turned around for a moment to look at him. "Physically they're both okay, except for that wound on her left hand." She motioned her hand towards Charlotte. "Speaking of which, I'm still going to look at that. It could be a laceration or—"

"It's an acid burn." Charlotte said softly as she looked at the gauze that she had wrapped so deftly around the center of her left had.

Ripley, who by now had been standing nearby for quite some time, almost dropped the two cups of hot chocolate she had in her hands. She felt a knot tightening in her stomach. It was fear. She wondered how Charlotte could've come in contact with what she assumed to be the acidic blood.

Gorman and Dietrich continued to look at each other blandly. "Well, whatever it is, I'll be taking a look at it in a bit. As I was saying before, they're both on the verge of malnutrition, but I don't think there will be any permanent damage." And with that, Dietrich left.

Gorman stood before Charlotte and Newt with one hand on his hip and the other holding onto a metal cabinet. "I'm Lieutenant Gorman. And I wanna let you know we're here to help."

'Suddenly everybody's a damn helpful hand. Where were you people weeks ago?' Charlotte thought to herself, remembering Dietrich's similar words.

"Why don't you both tell me what happened here?" Once again Gorman spoke with that learned authority.

Before she said anything she glanced over at Rebecca, who was staring out at a point in space. "Well, I can tell you right now you won't get a lot out of Newt, here. She doesn't talk much. Not even to me. Natalie and I found her about a week ago."

"Who's Natalie?" Gorman asked.

A look of extreme sadness swept over Charlotte's face. "She was a fellow nurse that I worked with. At first she and I thought we were the only survivors. I had been with her and several others, including my father, since I had to leave my apartment three weeks ago." She paused for a moment and all she got in return was silence from the lieutenant. "My daughter died, my father died, and I'm pretty sure my brother's gone too. I had a whole goddamn family here." Charlotte clenched her jaw tightly together and closed her eyes, hoping to prevent herself from crying, but all she saw in the darkness behind her eyelids was her daughter, her baby, Michelle.

Ripley stepped around the table Charlotte and Newt were sitting on and took a place standing behind Gorman. When Charlotte opened her eyes she saw Ripley standing there, an intense expression of sympathy plastered on her face. Ripley knew what it was like to loose someone.

"What happened to Natalie and everyone else?" Gorman inquired. "Where are they?"

"Natalie is dead. So are all the others." Charlotte said plainly. "Natalie was taken just yesterday. Pulled through a hole in the ceiling right out of my arms." Charlotte flinched at how unavoidably similar that was to the situation she encountered with her daughter.

The look on Gorman's face was grim… The look on Ripley's face was terrified…

Gorman didn't know whether to trust this or not. "If everyone is dead, where are all the bodies?" he asked, but he posed the question in such a way that made Charlotte feel almost like a suspect in a murder case.

Charlotte immediately went on the defensive and squinted at him angrily from behind her bangs. "I don't know."

Meanwhile, Newt had turned her head to stare dully at the aggravated woman. The girl remained silent.

Gorman stared at her, a little unbelieving. "You don't know where the bodies of one hundred and fifty-six colonists are? They can't just… disappear."

Charlotte stared at him, her blue eyes sparkling with frustration and anger. "When they're being dragged kicking and screaming into the darkness, I don't go running after them. I've learned my lesson. I'm not curious about where those giant fucking things live and, frankly, I don't wanna know, either. All I know is that when my family and friends and co-workers disappeared, they _never_ came back."

Gorman looked to the dangerous-looking woman in front of him and then to Newt. He was silent for a moment. "How did you two survive?"

"We hid… It's the only thing we _could_ do. Now, are you done with this interrogation? Because somewhere along the line you think I'm lying or delusional or something and if that's the case then there's no point in me even talking anymore." Charlotte said, her irritability clearly shining through.

"Rebecca," Gorman said as he focused his attention now on the little girl, seeing as he probably wouldn't get much more out of the aggravated woman, "where are your mommy and daddy?"

Newt said nothing, but instead Charlotte responded. "They're gone! Alright, Lieutenant Gorman? Just like everyone else! Now leave the girl alone! She's not going to talk to you!"

Gorman opened his mouth to say something but Ripley knew that he would do nothing but anger this scared woman even more, so she had to speak first. "Gorman, give it a rest, why don't you?"

Gorman looked over his shoulder at her. He must've agreed with Ripley because he sighed, ran his hand over his head, and quietly left.

There was silence in the office for a moment as Ripley handed Charlotte a steaming cup of hot chocolate and grabbed a chair and sat down in front of Newt.

"I'm sorry about him." Ripley said, referring to Gorman.

"It's alright, I suppose." Charlotte said quietly as she sipped delicately from the mug. "I know he means no harm. I know the marines mean no harm. It's just… hard to talk about, that's all."

Ripley nodded in complete understanding. There were things that Ripley found difficult to talk about as well. She then turned her attention to the little girl in front of her. Ripley brushed the girl's unkempt hair out of her eyes softly. The child seemed detached and distant.

"Try this… Newt." Ripley said, trying out the girl's nickname that she heard from Charlotte earlier. "It's a little hot chocolate." Ripley wrapped Newt's hands around the small mug and lifted it to her mouth. She tilted the cup gently and found that the only thing she was doing was spilling chocolate down the girl's chin. She grabbed a small towel that had been sitting on the table and dabbed lightly at the Newt's chin. "Uh oh. I've made a clean spot here. Now I've done it. Guess I'll just have to do the whole thing." Ripley began to wipe all the filth away from Newt's face. "Hard to believe there's a little girl under all this. And a pretty one too."

Newt flashed a ghost of a smile.

Charlotte watched with a look of approval on her face at how maternally she treated Newt and how the girl was reacting to her. She felt that Ripley must've had a child to understand how to deal with Newt. The only way that Charlotte knew how to react to Newt was because of her dealings with her own daughter. "Did, um, you ever have a daughter, Ms., uh…?"

Ripley paused for a moment without looking in Charlotte's direction. "Ripley. Ellen Ripley. And yes, I did have a daughter, but she's gone now."

Charlotte sighed quietly as she stared into her mug. "I'm sorry. I know what it feels like."

Charlotte and Ellen turned their heads to look at each other at the exact same moment. Ripley knew that her loss was a little different from this woman's. But either way, neither mother would ever get to see their child grow up, graduate from high school, or have children of their own.

And because of that painful loss they shared, Charlotte and Ripley formed a bonding friendship.

111

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **Instead of the Ripley/Newt Mother/Daughter relationship, I've decided to create and focus a little more on the Ripley/Charlotte Sister/Sister relationship. And don't worry, I won't forget about Hicks. He's comin'. There is just so much I want to do with this story...


	4. Sublevel 3

**AUTHOR'S NOTE**: Thanks so much for the praise and constructive criticism! It motivates me and I really do listen to it and try to correct things you may find to be incorrect. I also want to say that I'm working on changing some things with the first chapter (already told ya that, though… heh) but I'm having a bit of writer's block with the corrections so please be patient.

There's one final thing that I have to mention. I now have a new job (I didn't have one for about a month) and I'm starting my trade school so I'm not going to have as much time to update as I did before. So I guess what I wanted to tell you was that updates will now be a little farther apart.

PARTS REWRITTEN!

**1111**

Chapter 4: Sublevel 3

While the previous interrogation was taking place in the Manager's Office, a certain Corporal was standing just out of sight listening to much of what was being said.

"My daughter died, my father died, and I'm pretty sure my brother's gone too. I had a whole goddamn family here." Hicks heard this woman, Charlotte, say at one point during the conversation with Lieutenant Gorman.

That was when Hicks looked down and carefully studied the picture he had in his hand. Two of the four corners were torn and the photo seemed faded, the colors not as bright or radiant as they used to be. There was a woman and a child in the picture. The woman, who Hicks assumed to be Charlotte, was donning a huge toothy grin and looking up at the girl that sat on her shoulders. The girl looked exactly like Charlotte; same nose, same smile, same dusty brown hair. The only difference was the eyes. Charlotte's were a deep ocean blue, but the girl's were a beautiful hazel. The two looked enormously happy.

Hicks remembered when he first came across the picture.

**1111**

"_Don't shoot!" Hicks barked. The two soldiers next to him stopped in mid-step and looked at him strangely. "Look." Hicks said as he pointed down the hallway._

_From around the bend came two people; a small girl and a woman, maybe twenty-five or so. The two stopped at the end of the hallway and stared at the soldiers and the four people behind them. The girl was clinging to the woman's leg fiercely and hiding half her head behind the woman's lower back. This lady, whoever she was, had her arm wrapped protectively around the girl's upper body. They both looked ragged and terrified._

"_P-please." The woman began softly as tears streamed down her dirty cheeks. "Please, help us."_

_Without hesitation Hicks ran to the two. Frost and Drake followed._

_The woman seemed like she was going to collapse and so Frost grabbed the child and picked her up, pulling her away from her protector. The girl grunted a little as she struggled, but she never screamed or yelled. She knew better than to make noise in a place like that. She did succeed in biting his hand, though._

_Once Frost had the girl, Drake swooped in and threw the woman's arm around his shoulder as he helped her stand and keep her feet on the ground._

_Hicks was about to slip in under her other arm when he noticed something falling to the floor behind her. He quickly bent down to pick it up. He didn't even bother taking a closer look at the picture that had fallen out of the woman's pocket. He simply slipped it into his own back pocket and figured he would just give it back later when he had the opportunity._

**1111**

Hicks snapped out of his daze when he realized there was something taped to the back. He flipped the photo over and inspected the back carefully. It was an ID card, Charlotte's ID card. It probably used to be stark white but the card had warped slightly and the white was now faded to a dull ivory. A thick, red line bordered the edges of the card and across the top in black, bold letters it said '**WEYLAND-YUTANI**' and underneath that it said '**Building Better Worlds**'. Then came all the little tid-bits of information anyone would ever want to know about the original cardholder.

_ID #: 6253-41-9921  
Name: Charlotte R. Hodges  
Occupation: Licensed Practical Nurse  
Birth Date: 06/14/2153_

_Issue Date: 09/05/2173_

_Sex: Female_

_Height: 5'6"_

_Weight: 118 lbs._

_Eyes: Blue_

_Hair: Brown_

Next to all of this basic information was a picture of Charlotte. Her hair was pulled back into a snug bun and her mouth was curved into a tight, very business-like smile. It seemed rather fake.

Hicks wondered briefly why she would tape her colony ID card to the back of a photograph. Whatever the reason, he believed that the ID card and the picture were probably very important to her. He hoped for the chance to give it back to her.

The Corporal looked up to see Gorman walk out of the small office and head towards another area of Operations. He appeared frustrated. He looked back to see Ripley, Charlotte, and Newt. Ripley and Charlotte seemed to be talking.

'I can just do it later.' He said to himself as he walked away from the woman with the frizzy ponytail and striking blue eyes.

He strolled past his fellow Marines and his Sergeant over to Gorman, Burke, and Hudson. Gorman and Burke were huddled closely around Hudson as the gum-chewing Marine carefully scanned a large computer. It appeared to be a layout of the entire colony. Suddenly, Hicks knew what Hudson was searching for.

Hudson glanced over his shoulder at the trio. "Smoking or non-smoking?" he asked as he chomped loudly on the gum in his mouth.

Gorman was standing almost directly behind the soldier. He had his hands clasped neatly behind his back and he was leaning slightly over Hudson's shoulder. "Just tell me what you're scanning for, Private."

Burke, who had been sitting in a chair next to Hudson, looked behind him at Gorman. "PDTs." he said.

"What?"

"Personal Data Transmitters. Every colonist had one surgically implanted." Burke replied. He looked away from Gorman and once again concentrated on the screen in front of him.

"If they're within twenty clicks we'll read it out here. But so far… zippo." Hudson never broke his gaze from the screen.

It took a few more minutes for Hudson to finally cry out and startle everyone. "Yo! Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen!" He bobbed his head slightly. "Found em'."

"Alive?" Gorman asked.

"Unknown, but it looks like all of em'." Hudson squinted his eyes at the screen to make sure this was indeed real. It was so strange to find _all_ of the colonists in one place. "Over at the processing station, sublevel three, under the main cooling towers."

Hicks, by this time, had whipped out a cigarette and was puffing heavily on it. He inched his way closer to the screen and stared strangely at the tightly-packed clump of blue, flashing dots. "Looks like a goddamn town meeting."

Gorman finally stood up straight, his hands still tangled together behind his back, of course. "Let's saddle up, Apone." he said confidently. He never seemed to find this whole situation awfully suspicious.

"Aye, Sir." Apone said from behind him. "Awright! Let's go, girls! They ain't payin' us by the hour!"

Suddenly Hicks got a very strange feeling. He wasn't sure what it was at first, but he decided to ignore it for the time being, blaming it on the adrenaline that was starting to pump through his veins.

He didn't realize it at the time, but it was a mixture of anticipation and panic.

**1111 **

The turbulent atmosphere of LV-426 had a strange, gloomy tint of blue to it and the surface was nothing but craters and odd rock formations. They seemed to poke out of the ground like knives. No matter, the APC charged over the rugged terrain like a tank. It was armored to the hilt and the only weakness it appeared to have was the small glass windshield in the front of the vehicle.

All of the Marines sat in the back of the APC as it roared along. They were joking quietly with each other. Hudson and Vasquez teased each other relentlessly as they always did while some of the others looked on, smirking. Frost and Crowe were in their own little world having their own little conversation.

"Man, I'm telling you, I got a bad feeling about this mission."

"You always say that, Frost. You always say, 'I got a bad feeling about this mission.'"

"Okay, okay. When we get back without you, I'll call your folks."

Hicks, meanwhile, sat there silently as he always did. He tended not to talk much to his fellow Marines unless he had something significant to say. He was known for this so they generally left their Corporal alone.

Hicks watched with a tinge of intrigue at the woman who sat on the floor with the small girl next to her. She appeared to be thinking about something as she stared off into the distance.

Charlotte could feel a pair of eyes boring into her. She could see him in her peripheral vision. She didn't want to look up but she couldn't help herself. Her eyes rose in his direction and for a short moment they made eye contact. Charlotte recognized him as one of the men who helped her and Newt when they were first found.

They continued to stare at each other until Charlotte broke her gaze away. It's not that she felt uncomfortable because for whatever reason she seemed to find him just as interesting as he found her but she knew that they must be getting closer to the atmosphere processor by now. It wasn't that far. She looked up to the many computer screens to her right and in front of them sat Lieutenant Gorman. Ripley was nearby as well and she too seemed to take interest in the screens that showed the huge, cone-shaped station looming ahead.

**1111**

The APC drove closer to the station and the vehicle moved underneath huge metallic legs that seemed to stem from the sides of the processor. A massive entrance came into view that lead to the bowels of the atmosphere processor and just to the right of that was an access ramp.

The APC slowed down and then came to a brief pause as it waited for the ramp door to shift upwards and let the vehicle through. It moved slowly along through the access ramp, heading deeper and deeper into the processor until it finally came to a halt.

Within seconds all of the Marines had hopped out of the vehicle, leaving the likes of Charlotte and Newt and the others behind.

The access ramp was dimly lit and steam poured out of vents covering the walls and ceiling, making the ramp dank and moist. Water dripped down, splashing on the helmets of the Marines and the thrum of the working machines echoed eerily throughout the massive structure.

Vasquez and Drake led the way for the troopers with their giant smart-guns. The rest of the soldiers positioned themselves behind the two smart-gun operators as they all moved along the ramp.

Gorman began his ramblings immediately. No one seemed to listen except the Sergeant. "Hudson, tracker online." Apone said loudly.

Gorman pointed them in the direction of an open stairwell. "You want sublevel 3." He said as all the Marines paused and looked stared at a brightly lit sign that indicated their position. Sublevel 1.

**1111**

Back in the APC, Gorman sat in front of all the small screens and keyboards and buttons. His hands and eyes danced over everything as he swiveled around side to side in his chair.

Ripley and Burke crowded around him, watching with interest at the screens that showed what each individual Marine was seeing from his or her headset. The quiet Newt was nearby, hanging from a metal bar above her. For a child, she seemed to take great interest in the event happening before her.

Charlotte stood in the background, staring at all of this blankly as she realized something was probably going to go wrong. It always did in these kinds of situations. A dull ache formed in her stomach as she watched the Marines move from sublevel 1 to sublevel 2. It was fear and worry.

For a moment she found herself focusing on Hicks' camera transmission. He appeared to be bringing up the rear.

**1111**

"Probably getting some interference from the structure." came Hudson's reply over his headset as he heard Gorman say that their transmission was showing a lot of breakup.

"Next one down." Gorman said as he looked at another screen and saw the Marines were getting closer to the flashing blue dots, the colonists. "And proceed on a two-one-six."

"Ah, roger. That's a two-one-six." Apone replied.

There was silence for a moment as all of the Marines entered some kind of huge chamber. It could only be described as frightening.

Among the pipes and vents and machine workings was something new and grotesque. It overlapped the damp metal and clung wetly to it. It weaved in and out of the original hardware that it almost _looked_ like the original hardware. It was difficult to see where one ended and the other began. It was dark and slimy and looked almost alive and pulsing. And whatever it was, it was everywhere.

**1111**

"I'm not making that out too well. What is that, Hudson?" Goman asked calmly, looking at the screens.

Hudson looked into Vasquez's headset camera. "You tell me, man. I only work here." The disgusted and bewildered look was evident on his face.

Gorman looked to Ripley who was leaning over him. "What is that?" he asked.

"I don't know."

Gorman looked back to the camera feed. "Proceed inside."

Charlotte was horrified by what she saw. She knew it could only be them. This was not of human origin.

**1111**

Apone waved his team inside and they all began to move down an array of tunnels. They used to be corridors and hallways but the black, encrusted substance deformed and changed everything it touched. And now these hallways-turned-tunnels seemed to pulse with a strange kind of life.

"Watch your fire and check your targets. Remember, we're looking for civilians here." Apone's voice rattled over the headsets of the Marines.

The adrenaline that had been pumping through Hicks' veins, he realized, was turning into a state of dread and panic. 'Something isn't right here. What the hell is going on?'

Dietrich was holding up the rear with Hicks. She was fascinated by this strange… whatever it was. She broke off a small piece that hung near her and fiddled around with it in her hand. "Looks like some sort of secreted resin." She said to no one in particular.

Hicks looked up to the dripping ceiling. "Yeah, but secreted from what?"

Apone heard the dialogue at the end of the line and knew how his men were. They couldn't just look at anything. They always had to touch. "No body touch nothin'." He growled.

**1111**

Burke stared at the screens. "Busy little creatures, huh?"

Charlotte was standing next to him and when she heard him speak she turned her head to a near 90 degree angle and glared at him. He seemed so insensitive to the situation and Charlotte felt a sudden distaste for him.

Burke felt the colonist watching him and he glanced in her direction.

"You have no idea." he heard her mumble.

**1111**

"Hot as hell n' here." Frost piped up.

Hudson smirked. "Yeah, man, but it's a dry heat."

Apone was getting annoyed. "Knock it off, Hudson."

The Marines continued to move along smoothly and unknowingly to their eventual defeat.

**1111**

Ripley stared intensely at the screen with the flashing blue dots and Charlotte moved up next to her, sensing the wheels turning in the woman's head. She was thinking.

"Lieutenant, what do those pulse rifles fire?" Ripley said, referring to the guns the marines carried.

"10mm explosive-tip caseless, standard light-armor piercing round. Why?"

Ripley remained calm. "Well, look where your team is. They're right under the primary heat exchangers."

Suddenly it dawned on Charlotte what Ripley was trying to get it at. Her eyes grew wide as she realized the implications of this.

Gorman was not catching on so easily, though. "So?"

Charlotte butted into the conversation. "Lieutenant, if they fire those pulse rifles in there, there's a good chance they'll rupture the cooling system."

Burke leaned in closer. They all seemed to be invading each other's space at this point. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Yeah, she's absolutely right."

Gorman was getting irritated at what he thought to be a pointless conversation. "_So_? So what?"

"Look," Burke was trying to get this through to the Lieutenant, "this whole station is basically a big fusion reactor, right? So we're talking about a thermonuclear explosion and adios muchachos."

A bead of sweat made it's way down the side of Gorman's temple. "Oh, great. Wonderful. Shit!" He massaged his head while trying to think.

"Look… uh… Apone… look, we can't have any firing in there. I, uh, I want you to collect magazines from everybody."

**1111**

All the troopers looked at each other in stupid shock as they heard Gorman over their headsets.

"Is he fucking crazy?" Hudson yelled.

Frost was next to speak among the Marines. "What the hell are we supposed to use, man? Harsh language?"

Gorman spoke again. "Flame-units only. I want rifles slung."

Sergeant Apone didn't think this was such a good idea and so he began to protest.

"Just _do it_, Sergeant. And no grenades."

Apone looked at each of his men as if to say, 'Sorry, but it's orders.' "Awright, sweethearts, you heard the man. Pull 'em out. Come on. Let's have 'em. Come on, Vasquez. Clear and lock." Vasquez grudgingly popped out the small battery unit that powered the gun and handed it over to the waiting Apone.

Apone walked along the line of troopers and collected magazines from each. "You too. Give it up, Speedy. Come on. Let's go. Crowe, I want it now. Give it up."

After Apone moved past Vasquez and Drake, Vasquez whipped out two spare lithium batteries that she had been hiding. She inserted one into her own weapon and gave the other to Drake.

Drake smirked. "Right on, Vas."

Apone made his way to the end of the line to Hicks. "Let's go, Marine. Give it up." He looked to Frost. "Frost, you got the duty. Open that bag." Apone tossed all the magazines into the rucksack that Frost was carrying.

"Thanks a lot, Sarge." the trooper said as the bag became heavier and heavier with everyone's magazines.

Apone began to walk away. "Hicks, cover our ass. Head 'em out, people!"

Hicks made sure Apone was completely out of sight before he pulled out an old-style pump-action twelve gauge. "I like to keep this handy--" he chambered a round, "--for close encounters."

Frost looked over his gun. "I heard that."

**1111**

Back in the APC Charlotte was protesting. "This is not a good idea, Lieutenant! They have nothing to defend themselves!"

Gorman looked back at her casually. "They have flame-units."

"That's not gonna work with these creatures!"

Ripley looked at Charlotte in horror.

"But didn't you just tell all of us that their pulse rifles could rupture the cooling system?" Burke said.

"Yes, but what I'm trying to tell you is to get the Marines out of there!" Charlotte couldn't bear to watch a massacre.

**1111**

"Any movement?" Gorman's voice filtered over the headsets of the Marines. And along with his voice a woman's voice could be heard in the background. She seemed to be yelling about something.

A couple of the Marines smirked at each other but Hicks paused for a moment as he realized that the voice belonged to Charlotte. Her voice faded in and out and it sounded distant, but it was definitely her. "…get them out… have to leave…… they're down… not alone… plea--"

This distant rambling was cut off by Hudson as he looked at the motion tracker. "Nothing… zip."

As the Marines left one of the tunnels and entered another, they stopped. They all looked to the walls in dawning horror.

"Holy shit…" Apone whispered.

There were people everywhere and they were cocooned to the walls, _entombed alive_. This was what the flashing blue dots led them to. This is what awaited them. Over a hundred dead colonists. They were trapped in the same material that the walls seemed to be made out of. Their bodies were contorted and twisted, ribcages exploding outwards, whatever was inside now let loose.

**1111**

Everybody in the APC was silent as Charlotte started to cry.

Ripley realized that Newt was still right there along with them. "Newt, go sit up front. Go on. Now!" Newt scrambled off.

Ripley looked over to Charlotte and saw the tears etching rivers into her cheeks. Ripley put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed reassuringly. These were all people that Charlotte knew, worked with, and saw on a day-to-day basis and Ripley knew what it was like to loose people that close.

**1111**

Soon the Marines came across the eggs.

There were dozens of them all over the place. Their leathery tops were spilt open like flower petals and they were empty and dry.

Hicks poked one with his gun and shined his light into it. As he walked along a little more he found a beige, spider-like creature that looked alarmingly familiar. He lifted it up with the end of his gun. A gooey slime stuck to it. Hicks stared at it for a moment and realized that it was just like the creatures found in the med-lab back in the colony. Thank heaven it was dead. 'This is fucking nuts.'

Apone knew his men were probably frightened or at the very least grossed out so he spoke to them. "Steady people. Let's finish our sweep. We're still Marines and we have a job to do. Keep it movin'. Easy."

Dietrich moved closer to one of the cocooned figures so she could examine it. She carefully lifted the head. It was a woman with dark, short hair that was now slimed over, as was the rest of her encased body. She was deathly pale and her face was drawn and thin. She looked almost frightening. That was when her eyes snapped open.

Dietrich jumped back, startled. "Top!" she cried.

Apone started to move in her direction. "What?"

"Top! Get over here! We got a live one!" She looked at the woman and her voice dropped to barely a whisper. "You're going to be alright. You're going to be alllright."

The woman stared at the med-tech pleadingly. "Please… ki-kill me."

**1111**

Charlotte saw the woman on Dietrich's camera feed. She moved out of Ripley's grip and pushed Burke out of the way as she inched closer and closer to the computers. She reached her hand out and placed it on the screen as her tears turned to sobs. "N-Natalie?"

Everyone turned to stare at Charlotte in shock.

"_Do_ something, Lieutenant! Don't just sit there! _Save her_!"


	5. The Battle

**AUTHOR'S NOTE**: First off, I just want to apologize for the lack of updates for about the past, um… _two months_. My computer was on its deathbed. But… here I am again (because someone fixed it)!

I would also like to say you guys are the best Readers/Reviewers ever!!

By the way, I went to Wikipedia. And I thought I actually had all the info I would need to accurately recreate the story! Man, I was wrong… Anywho, thanks to Spacefan for the heads-up and thanks to Thug-4-Less for pointing out the inaccuracy to me. I fixed it as best I could. In fact, I just went back and basically redid the whole sentence.

P.S. For your reading pleasure (and to make up for the long time between updates) I've made this chapter nice and long. Enjoy!

**

* * *

Chapter 5: The Battle**

"Lieutenant!" Charlotte bellowed as she shook the man's chair. Her eyes were red and bloodshot and puffy. She had been crying so much.

She felt like dragging the lieutenant out of his chair and tying him up somewhere in the back of the APC because right now he wasn't helping any. In fact, he was now staring with a kind of strange repulsion at Dietrich's camera feed, but he remained silent.

Ellen Ripley, on the other hand, watched with utter sadness. Her heart broke for Natalie. It broke for her and all the other colonists who suffered the same fate. Her brows furrowed and her mouth parted slightly, as if she was holding back a line of painful tears.

Everyone in the APC heard the Marines yelling things to each other as they gathered around the cocooned woman.

"Just stay calm. We're going to get you outta here."

"Uh… Sir, we got a survivor here."

"It's going to be alright. Give me a hand! We gotta get her outta here!"

"Hudson… Dietrich. What's going on?"

* * *

The Marines continued to ramble to each other on Sublevel 3 until the woman began to convulse violently.

Dietrich yelled to the others. "Convulsion!"

Natalie screamed in uncontrollable agony as her body shook violently. Something awful was happening to her as pain racked her body.

"Dietrich, get back! Get back!" Apone yelled as he pulled the med-tech back.

The center of Natalie's shirt became caked in red as something began to force its way out through her ribcage.

* * *

Ripley's fist covered her chest as she stared in horror and pain at the all-too-familiar scene. She remembered how Kane flailed about frantically before birthing the small, revolting creature that terrorized her nightmares.

Charlotte's body shook with hysterical sobs. This wasn't the first time that Charlotte had seen a death like this. So many of her fellow colonists had suffered and died in the same way.

There was nothing that could be done anymore.

* * *

The woman took a final agonizing gasp as her head lulled to the side. A small creature had ripped and gnawed its way through her chest. It was, perhaps, no longer than someone's forearm and it was a sickening beige color. Of course, no one could tell though because it was dripping in the woman's blood.

Its teeth looked incredibly sharp and metallic as it opened its mouth and hissed viciously at the Marines, as if daring them to do something about its presence.

"Frost! Flamethrower!" Apone yelled.

"Kill it!" Hudson, in the background, of course, hollered out.

"Get back! Flamethrower! Move!" Apone took the flamethrower from Frost and got down on one knee. He had no idea how it came to this or how that disgusting little fucker got inside of that woman, but he _did_ know that if he saw another one he'd burn the whole goddamn place to the ground.

The creature let out a high-pitched death shriek as it moved wildly around, half in/half out of the dead, cocooned woman. It screamed and hissed just before it slumped over, dead.

As the woman's body continued to smolder and burn, a strange and shrill sound could be heard. It was an angry sound. Dietrich and the Sarge looked to the dark ceiling but saw nothing even as the encrusted walls seemed to vibrate with the noise.

Smoke crawled throughout the quiet chamber and suddenly everything appeared much more dangerous.

Hicks got a sudden and distinct feeling of dread. Something bad was going to happen… something bad and inevitable. He could feel it in every pore of his body.

"Movement!" Hudson yelled out as his tracker began to beep.

Apone immediately stood up from his position and turned to look at Hudson. "What's the position?"

"Uh… can't lock in…" Hudson said as he spun around several times trying to pinpoint the exact location of whatever it was that was sneaking up on them.

"Talk to me, _Hudson_!" Apone barked. If something was here with them he wanted to know about it.

Hudson began to get panicky as the beeping on his tracker became steady and frequent. "Uh… multiple signals… they're closing."

"Go to infra-red people. Look sharp." Apone said as he pulled down a small visor that covered his right eye.

* * *

In the APC Gorman was fiddling and playing with controls on the monitors before him. "What's happening, Apone? We can't see anything in here."

Ripley's head was level with Gorman's as she looked around at all the screens in front of them. She sensed something was coming. She _knew_ something was coming. "Pull your team out, Gorman."

Charlotte's eyes grew wide and fearful as she heard the piercing sound over the troopers' camera feed. "They're coming," she mumbled quietly as she took a step back from the monitors.

Burke looked over at the woman next to him. "Who is?"

"The adults. The soldiers killed one, and now they're pissed."

* * *

The troopers moved along the chamber stealthily, looking for something they couldn't even see.

"I've got signals! I've got readings in front and behind!" Hudson called out as he stared at his tracker. What would normally only be blue dots on the screen were now huge patches reading only meters away.

Frost looked around. "Where, man? I don't see shit."

Hicks continued to look around but came across nothing. And the creepy feeling that was crawling up his spine didn't count. "He's right. There's nothing back here."

Hudson was getting frustrated. His tracker was never off but no one believed him. "Look, I'm tellin' you, somethin's movin' and it ain't us!"

Frost's eyes were darting all over the place when he felt something on his shoulder. He jumped and quickly turned around only to find Dietrich. "Ah shit."

"The tracker's off the scale, man! They're all around us, man! Jesus!" Hudson's voice came over the headsets.

Dietrich moved along slowly past Frost to a little less crowded spot. She held her gun close to her body like a security blanket. Then a frightening thought came to mind as she realized her small little visor across her eye wasn't helping any. "Maybe they don't show up on the infra-red at all…"

She turned her back to the wall as she continued to study her surroundings.

The moment the dark claws locked onto her shoulders and lifted her off the ground she struggled violently. She kicked and screamed and, reflexively, fired her flamethrower.

Frost heard her cries and turned around just in time to see a burst of flames. He yelled out as his body was engulfed. He stumbled backward and fell over a nearby railing, tumbling downward into the belly of the structure.

Dietrich continued to scream as she was pulled upward to the dark ceiling.

"FROST!" Hicks yelled out.

Crowe peered over the railing with wide, frightened eyes.

Hicks had turned around as well but rather than join Crowe at the railing, he looked down with horror in his eyes at the burning satchel of pulse rifle magazines—the very satchel that Frost had been ordered to carry.

Knowing what was coming, Hicks grabbed Crowe and yanked him as hard as he could away from the railing and flaming magazines.

Everything in that moment seemed to move in slow motion for Hicks. The blast was sudden and deafening and catapulted Crowe and himself forward. Hicks hit the ground hard but Crowe wasn't as fortunate. The young man flew head-on into a nearby pillar with a bone-crunching _THUD_.

* * *

Everyone in the APC watched as confusion spread amongst the troopers. They watched as Frost's bio-readouts went flat line. They watched as Crowe's bio-readouts went flat line. And they watched as their monitors filled with static and then blacked out.

"Jesus Christ, Apone! What is going on?" Gorman yelled into his headset as he stared at the monitors in confusion. This shouldn't be happening to him… not on his second drop.

"Crowe is down!"

Charlotte listened to Hicks's voice with empathetic ears. She knew this would come: the massacre she wished to avoid. She wanted to scream for him to come back. She wanted to scream for _all _of the Marines to come back. She wanted to ask him what his first name was. She wanted to talk to him… even if it was only for a moment.

* * *

The atmosphere amongst the Marines became jumbled and messy as they tried to gather themselves and realize what was going on.

"Crowe--"

"Dietrich… Frost, off the board!"

"--sound off! Frost! Frost!"

Hicks knelt down next to Crowe's body. He flipped the man over and stared at his bloody, bruised face. Crowe was definitely down. 'What the goddamn hell is happening here?!"

Hicks suddenly heard someone yelling behind him. It was a startled, painful yell, like someone had been caught off guard. Hicks recognized the voice and turned his head and stood up, only to find no one behind him anymore. "Wierzbowski! Wierzbowski!"

* * *

Ripley felt enormously helpless. There was a battle going on that she couldn't do anything about.

She was leaning forward, hunched over a little and gripping the keyboards tightly as her eyes darted frantically from one monitor to the next. Her face glistened with sweat. She wasn't sure if it was the tension of the situation getting to her or just the heat of all the bodies in the APC.

Wierzbowski's monitor suddenly went to nothing but scratchy static and Ripley's sense of helplessness gripped her even tighter.

* * *

Vasquez knew, she just _knew_ she would need her smart-gun. So she was damn glad that she came prepared with extra lithium batteries for herself and Drake.

The woman looked to Drake who stood nearby. They were both thinking the same thing. The others couldn't defend themselves… so _they_ would defend them. And besides, she was antsy to fire her gun anyway.

Vasquez deftly positioned her gun across her abdomen. She gave her roaring battle cry and began to fire. "Let's rooock!"

Drake joined her and soon they were both firing at the dark, moving walls.

* * *

Gorman stared with wide, angry eyes. Someone was firing their gun. "Who's firing? _Goddamnit_!"

Charlotte stared at the monitors in shock. These people were probably going to die… even if they _had_ top-of-the-line weapons and equipment. She knew there was nothing that could stop the brutality or hostility of these creatures.

She had to do something.

* * *

Drake and Vasquez continued firing their guns at dark walls and endless ceilings.

"Yeah!" Vasquez barked out. She wasn't so much concentrating on her enemy as she was on the feel of the smooth metal in her hands, the heavy weight of it against her stomach, and the kick she felt every time she pulled the trigger. She loved to fire her gun.

* * *

"I ordered a hold fire!"

Gorman's chain of command seemed to be falling apart right in front of his eyes, as was his mental state. No one was listening to him. His orders were not being met. There was mass confusion. He could barely even tell what was going on.

As the last threads of his calm began to fray, he heard Hudson, "They're coming outta the walls!"

* * *

"They're coming outta the goddamn walls! Let's book!" Hudson was panicked, to say the least.

The walls seemed to be slithering and moving. Something was closing in on the soldiers.

* * *

"On your right, man!"

"Do iiitt!"

Gorman heard the Marines yelling desperately to one another and so he tried to gather the last few bits left of himself. "Apone, I want you to lay down suppressing fire with the incinerators and fall back by squads to the APC, over."

* * *

"Vasquez! Drake! Hold your fire goddamnit!" Apone yelled. He tried looking around through the smoke but had trouble even seeing his own two hands in front of him.

He spun around several times looking for whatever his soldiers were shooting at and at the same time trying to listen to Gorman ramble on. He grabbed the earpiece and pushed it closer to his ear. "Say again! All after incinerator!"

* * *

Gorman tried to remain as calm as possible. He closed his eyes for a brief second and then repeated his order. "I said I want you to lay down a suppressing fire with the incinerators and fall back by squads to the APC, over."

He tried desperately to keep his voice from cracking.

* * *

Apone was isolated in the dense smoke around him. He couldn't see anything. He looked around futilely for a moment as he held his earpiece close to his face once again.

He looked upward for a moment. As one of the giant, black creatures crawled toward him from the ceiling, he tried to aim his flamethrower upward. It was too late. He wasn't fast enough. It swung down and grabbed a hold of him.

* * *

Apone's monitor went blindingly white for a moment. He cried out for a brief moment and then his monitor went to nothing but static.

Gorman just stared at the screen. His breathing was heavy and his eyes seemed to be almost popping out of his head. "Apone?" he squeaked out.

The other soldiers soon began to realize their Sarge was no longer around. "Sarge! Sarge!"

Gorman listened to their voices but they all sounded so distant. "Talk to me…" Gorman mumbled to the static-filled screen.

Hudson's voice suddenly filled his head. "He's dead, man!"

And then Hicks. "Top! You copy?"

And then Hudson again. "Ah, man! He's gone!"

Gorman was still lost in his own fearful world. "Apone… talk to _me_!"

"He's gone!" Ripley barked at him, pulling him out of his disbelieving daze.

Charlotte and Burke stared at all the monitors. Some had gone to static and others just showed the Marines running around and shooting at something that no one in the APC could see.

Ripley began yelling at Gorman. "Get them _out_ of there!"

"Shut up!"

"Do it now!"

"_Shut up_!"

Ripley snatched one of the headsets off the counter and yelled into it. "Hicks, who's ever left, get the hell out of--!"

Gorman, his calm now completely disintegrated, ripped the headset out of Ripley's hand. "Just shut up!"

"Goddamnit!"

Charlotte continued to stare at the monitors without saying a word. The soldiers were scrambling around, yelling into each others helmet cameras.

Her eyes focused on Hudson's camera feed as Hicks ran up to the panicked com-tech. He almost seemed to be staring right at Charlotte. "Where's Apone?! Where's Apone?!"

Her face contorted with sadness. "He's gone." She whispered to Hicks' face on the screen.

She then looked to Hicks' camera feed. Hudson's face was plastered all over it. "The Sarge is gone! Let's get the fuck outta here!"

Gorman looked as if all the blood had been drained out of his face. "Hudson? Vasquez?"

"Hudson, look out!"

"Get it!"

Everyone watched as Hicks blew away someone unknown creature with his shotgun. It shrieked loudly.

"Hi-Hicks? …I told them to fall back." Gorman didn't know what to do next.

"They're cut off!" Ripley said as she lunged forward and grabbed the collar of his shirt. "_Do _something!"

Gorman's wide eyes were glued to the monitors. She knew he would be of no help now. Not like he ever was, though…

She looked up to see Charlotte next to her. The woman looked… prepared for something. Prepared to help.

Ripley let go of Gorman. She shouldered her way past the others and ran down the aisle of the APC. She knew what she had to do.

And frankly, Charlotte knew too. As Ripley started up the APC, Gorman suddenly came back to life.

"Ripley, what the hell are you doing?!"

Ripley slammed the APC into gear as Gorman jumped up from his seat. Just as he turned around he met face to face with Charlotte. She looked angry and exhausted.

"Get out of my way!"

"Sit down, Gorman." Charlotte said calmly.

"Get the hell outta my way! We're turning this thing around!"

As he tried to push past her, he felt something slam into his face. It was Charlotte's fist. It made contact with his nose and sent him careening to the ground.

"We're doing this _our_ way, Gorman!" Charlotte said as she looked at him.

He seemed to no longer care that Ripley was making her way deeper into the complex, towards the soldiers. He was concentrating now on the blood that was gushing out of his nose. "Y-you hit me!" he said, a little shocked.

"Yeah, I did."

* * *

Hicks was holding up a limp Hudson as they moved along. "Come on!" He held his shotgun out in front of him, ready to shoot at anything that popped out at him. Those creatures seemed to be very good at that.

Drake and Vasquez, on the other hand, were still bringing up the rear. They fired with amazing accuracy at the creatures that were not far behind.

"Come on, Drake!" Vasquez yelled out to Drake. He seemed to be lagging behind.

* * *

Burke and Charlotte had now made their way to the front of the APC and were standing next to Ripley as she drove along. Gorman was still in the back yelling about his nose.

The APC drove through a big cloud of steam and just as Ripley was able to see clearly again, she realized they were coming up on some sort of wall. A wall that shouldn't be there. It was black and slimy. It was some kind of alien encrustation.

Ripley braced for impact as did Charlotte and Burke. The vehicle shook violently as it slammed into and demolished the wall, sending debris everywhere.

Ripley quickly stopped the APC when she saw the last of the Marines.

There were only four left.


End file.
